That Little Flower Moment
by bigb360
Summary: [One Shot] During the time after Helios fell but before the group reunited, Fiona and Sasha are unsure about their friends' fates. Sasha informs Fiona of an even that occurred in the Atlas facility.
Fiona glanced behind her and pulled her hat lower as she turned the corner and entered the alleyway that led to her abode, as had become her habit. While those who put the bounty on her had been dead for several months, she couldn't be for sure every bounty hunter on Pandora had been informed of that news. She'd tried to yank down every wanted poster with her face on it she had seen, but who knew how far they had spread. Caution on top of caution was her philosophy every time she ventured out into the streets of Hollow Point now.

Confident she wasn't being followed; she hurried down the dark alleyway. Passing by the garbage strewn on the street she quickly made her way to her door. The old wood creaked as she fumbled with the lock. It always seemed to stick and took her special technique, which happened to be smacking the door just under the lock, to finally get the old tumblers to turn.

She stepped into her apartment and set down her pack and rolled her neck a few times. The supplies she had gathered had gotten heavy on the way home; leaving a slight stiffness she knew would keep her up tonight. She glanced around the small, quiet, dimly lit dwelling and was almost startled as her eyes fell onto a figure sitting at their kitchen counter/table. It was her sister. Sasha was simply sitting there hunched over. Her arms were crossed and resting on the table and her chin was resting on her arms. She had a vase full of blue flowers sitting on the table directly in front of her and it seemed as if she was staring at them.

Fiona raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like her sister to ignore her upon returning home. She almost always had something to say to her: a friendly greeting, a sarcastic comment, a sisterly chiding. But at that moment Sasha didn't even seem to notice that she'd entered. In fact, now that Fiona thought about it, Sasha had seemed more distant as of late. That did make sense though, Fiona figured. Their experience months ago had affected both of them quite a bit.

They hadn't talked about it much since they searched the wreckage of Helios for Rhys. Both of them had held out hope that he was alive and hadn't joined forces with the maniac in his head. He'd earned that trust, but Fiona still wasn't certain. He'd hidden Handsome Jack's presence from them for a long time and she wasn't sure she was able to forgive him for that just yet.

They never did find any trace of him. They had found a mechanical prosthetic arm hanging from a rafter that looked just like his, but who knew if it was actually his. How many Hyperion employees had those prosthetics?

She remembered Sasha frantically digging through rubble around the arm calling out for Rhys. She hadn't seen her sister that worked up for a long time, and that was saying a lot given what they had been through prior to Helios falling to Pandora. Fiona had finally put her hand on her shoulder, gently telling her he'd probably not made it. Sasha had turned her back at that point and brought a hand up to her face. She crossed her other arm across her waist and rested her elbow on her other hand. Fiona hadn't seen her sister cry in years. She was always so strong. But that moment months ago, after all of their friends had most likely died without even getting to say goodbye, even Fiona felt like crying. She didn't, but she really wanted to.

Fiona crossed the room to her sister and gently placed her hand on her shoulder. Sasha didn't start, but Fiona could tell she had taken her by surprise. Sasha slowly raised her chin off her arms and looked up to Fiona and smiled. "Hey sis," she said softly.

"Hey Sash. Are you okay? You're awfully quiet over here."

Sasha looked back to the vase full of blue flowers on the table. "Those are really pretty," Fiona commented.

"Yeah, I saw them in a shop today and picked them up," Sasha said. Fiona thought her voice was wavering a little bit, and found herself a little puzzled. The flowers were pretty, but she wasn't sure why her sister would even buy a vase of flowers. And she sure didn't understand why they seemed to be making her so somber all of a sudden. Sasha rested her cheek in her hand and began staring at them again.

After another few moments, Fiona started to inquire about her sister's well being again, but Sasha suddenly started talking, "You know he gave me a flower in the Atlas facility? A blue one. It looked a lot like these."

Fiona raised her eyebrows, a little taken aback. "Huh? Who? Wait…Rhys did?" Sasha nodded. Fiona was flabbergasted. "Rhys…THE Rhys gave you a flower?"

The corner of Sasha's mouth curled into a slight smile. "Yes. It surprised me too," she said shifting in her chair so that she was facing her sister, "in fact he surprised me a lot in there."

Fiona wasn't quite sure what to make of this. She placed her hands on her hips and paced in a small circle, processing the information while Sasha continued, "The dome was so beautiful, Fi. He…I think he was flirting with me in there."

Fiona felt her eyebrow rising again as she turned her head and looked at her sister again. Sasha was looking down at the floor now, a silly smile Fiona hadn't seen since their high school years on her face, her cheeks slightly flushed. Sasha continued, "When we first entered the dome, oh sis! I was engrossed in the beauty of the place. I hadn't seen something like that on Pandora ever. The blue hues, the hushed ambiance. I loved it! And then," she paused for just a moment, "he mentioned how it was…romantic."

Fiona stifled a laugh. "Romantic!?"

Sasha's smile widened as she nodded again. "Then we had a bit of a mishap on the catwalk. He thought we were hundreds of feet off the ground when I dropped down and he made a huge stink about not letting me fall and stuff. It's was like a five foot drop, FI. It was really pretty funny." She paused briefly, "And kind of…cute."

Fiona found herself burying her face in her hands as Sasha finished, "and then we found a tree with the most beautiful glowing blue flowers I've ever seen. And he picked one and, sis he was so nervous, and he put it in my hair like this." She took one of the flowers from the vase and put it above her left temple.

Her story over, Sasha sat there with a soft and happy look of nostalgia on her face. Fiona could tell how fond the memory was to her. Her sister was smiling brightly for the first time really since they had given up their search for all their friends.

"I knew he had been giving you googley eyes pretty much the entire time we were with him," Fiona said, smiling slightly, "but this is a new surprise altogether. I didn't think the guy had the stones to flirt like that!"

Sasha gave a slight laugh, "Yeah. You spend a certain amount of time with someone, and you start to see a side of them you weren't expecting." Sasha's smile then quickly turned and her countenance fell. "I miss them, sis; all of them. Loader Bot, Gortys, Vaughn, and…and I miss Rhys. They're probably all dead, and for what? We didn't even get to say goodbye to them."

"I miss them too, Sash," Fiona said as she sat down next to her hunched over sister and placed an arm around her. They both sat there for quite a while staring at the flowers, remembering and mourning their friends and their uncertain fate. If she ever did see Rhys again, she'd have to make it a point to bring this up.


End file.
